


bleeding flowers

by ideservetobeloved



Category: Sleeping With Sirens
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Gen, Graphic Description, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 02:59:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13332054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideservetobeloved/pseuds/ideservetobeloved
Summary: Kellin wasn’t what people thought of when they heard the term ‘eating disorder’.





	bleeding flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Huuuuge trigger warning for anything to do with eating disorders or suicidal thoughts/self-esteem issues.
> 
> This is honestly such a mess, not beta'd, not proof-read, no structure whatsoever x) Obviously I don't claim that Kelling actually has an eating disorder and I also don't know how his situation is with creative freedom and so on, but this is therapeutic for me and I thought some people might enjoy it.
> 
> Title is taken from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmDVEUsTMH8) beautiful poem by the wonderful Savannah Brown.

Kellin wasn’t what people thought of when they heard the term ‘eating disorder’. People thought of pretty girls with skinny thighs and delicate wrists, having apple slices for dinner, sobbing over the toilet and crying themselves to sleep. They thought of black painted fingernails holding a cigarette and oversized hoodies and fishnets over pale porcelain skin. 

People didn’t think of a pathetic little boy who looked into the mirror, hating every single inch of flabby, loose skin he saw. They didn’t think of dull black hair clogging up the shower drain, hours spent in the morning trying to mask the dark circles around his eyes and unhealthy yellowish color of his face with concealer. They didn’t think of jamming his fingers down his throat, his nails desperately scratching at the sensitive skin back there, his stomach clenching and the sour, stinging taste of bile in his mouth, gagging and retching, only heaving up a bit of stomach acrid because he couldn’t throw up something he didn’t eat. 

It wasn’t that Kellin didn’t think he was skinny. He wasn’t blind, he saw the way his skin would stretch around his shoulders, he could feel his hip bones poking out, threatening to break the pale, almost translucent skin over it, he saw his collar bones creating hollow spaces that were almost big enough so that he could fit his hand in there. It wasn’t about _being skinny_.

It was about disappearing. He wanted to be lighter than skin and bones, light enough so that the wind could pick him up and blow him away, light enough so that he would just dissolve into dust and ashes at the lightest touch.

The world didn’t need him, didn’t deserve him, and he didn’t deserve the world. Didn’t deserve having the life he had.

He had no idea how this whole band thing had happened, how there were people who legitimately listened to his music and seemed to like it even. Writing music was the only thing that made him feel somewhat whole, the only thing that didn’t make him want to tear at his own skin until it started bleeding. Instead, he tore at words, polished and sharpened them until they felt like daggers he could hide behind and shoot at the world, a momentary relief from the enormous weight that was crushing his chest and made him suffocate.

Being on stage was the only time when he didn’t want to be alone, curled up under a blanket and wishing the world away. Even though the long clothes he wore made him sweat despite always being cold, even though it didn’t take long for him to be completely out of breath, each gulp of air painfully brushing over the raw skin inside his throat, his sides stinging and muscles burning; when he was on stage he felt like perhaps he could be okay. It was moments like this where he thought that maybe he was wrong, maybe he _did_ deserve this, maybe he _was_ worthy of good things like having thousands of people scream lyrics back at him that he had scribbled down frantically on a post-it in lack of a piece of paper.

Of course, the next day or even just a few hours after a show that adrenaline shot wore off and he was once again reminded that he was a fucking worthless piece of shit.

He just couldn’t see any connection between himself, this scrawny, socially awkward, _ugly_ boy that looked like a fish, and the guy that people loved and idolized and saw as absolutely perfect. It was like he was wearing a disguise, a carefully constructed mask, smoothing out his edges, which would crumble if someone dared to take a deeper look.

No one knew that he thought like that about himself, no one knew what he was doing to himself, and as far as he was concerned, no one would ever know. Sometimes he was so close to telling someone, to lifting this rotten, mouldy curtain he had draped over his whole life, and letting someone see into the dark, bottomless pit that was under there. But he just couldn’t. He couldn’t stand his parents, or his band mates, or even his _fans_ looking at him with that _look_ of pity and judgment, and maybe even a little bit of resentment

_Why do you have to make everything about yourself. Why can’t you just appreciate the things you have. You’re so ungrateful._

The thing was, he was so _embarrassed_ about it. He didn’t want people to know what he looked like when he was hanging over the toilet seat, saliva dripping out of his mouth, his fingers coated with vomit. He didn’t want people to see the dark blue and yellow bruises on his thighs and stomach, where he would rip and pull at his flesh to find some kind of relief that he couldn’t even explain.

He didn’t want people to know about the fine hair that had started to cover his skin in a desperate attempt of his body to keep itself warm; about the way he almost passed out from going up one set of stairs; about his unreliable heart that was beating so slow sometimes that he was afraid it would just stop altogether, and then started fluttering frantically the very next moment like it was running a race; about the hunger roaring in his stomach and jumbling his insides.

It was sick. _He_ was sick, and he knew that, and he knew he should stop, but he didn’t want to, which made him even sicker.

He hated destroying himself like that, but at the same time there was nothing in the world that made him feel better. Music, maybe, but nothing compared to the feeling of looking at the ticking clock and calculating how many hours he’d gone without food already, nothing compared to the _control_ he felt.

There wasn’t much in his life that he had control over. Every move had to be calculated by others for him, every picture he posted on instagram, every social event he attended, every word he said in interviews. Even his music, that was so precious to him, that he wanted raw and untouched, got a makeover every single time.

_You can’t write that, that’s too vulgar. No no, this line doesn’t even rhyme with anything. Haha, that’s so cheesy, do you really want that in there? Jesus, that’s way too dark, do you want people to think you’re suicidal?_

Food was the only thing that was truly _his_ , the only thing that wasn’t under constant scrutiny and that he had full control over. He _needed_ this constant feeling of emptiness, this twisted pride that overcame him when he looked into the mirror and seemed a little bit thinner than the day before.

He didn’t let himself think about this kind of stuff very often, because he always felt so ungrateful and spoiled. His life was awesome, he was in a band with his best friends in the whole world; he had thousands of people that looked up to him, idolized and praised him for whatever reason. Why couldn’t he just appreciate that like every normal human being, but instead created non-existing problems for himself?

There were people who were dying, people with cancer, people at war, people being tortured or suffering from real hunger and actual pain and here he was, battling a disorder that he couldn’t live with, but couldn’t live without either. Not even battling it, _craving_ it.

More often than not, he catched himself lying in bed at night, listening to his shallow breathing and waiting for the deep pit inside of him to finally open up completely and swallow him whole, so he never had to see himself in the mirror again.


End file.
